Albert's Story

On the very first day of Earth Camp, I did something I've never done before: harvest saguaro fruit! Jesus, an Earth Camp staff member, made some kuipods to break off the fruit and fall to the desert floor. A kuipod is a long stick made of saguaro with a little cross at the top the get the fruit. We picked fruit until sunset while the staff cooked dinner on our camping trip. Unfortunately all the birds got to the ripe fruit before us. But besides all the splinters, it was really fun.

The most influential experience I had at Earth Camp would probably be when I visited the Flandrau planetarium. When we watched the video of what the Phoenix lander would be doing on Mars, it really interested me and because of that, I would like to take classes in engineering and astronomy in college so I could take part in a mission like this in the future. I'm hoping to attend the University of Arizona and at this rate, there probably will still be things NASA would want the university to do.Because I'm only going to 7th grade next year and college is far in the future, I will try to study on subjects that could help me prepare myself for my future goal.

On Thursday, Day 4 of Earth Camp, Craig Miller of Defenders of Wildlife came to explained to us why save a top predator can save more than its self. Defenders of Wildlife, an organozation that tries to save endangered speices told us about an umbrella speices where one animal is important to all the others in its ecosystem. A top predator such as the Mexican Wolf and the Northern Jaguar who are endangered are more important than a speices of snail. Not because its most known but because if the predator were to go exstinct, the rest of the ecosystem will collapse simply because a predator wasn't there from stopping a speices of animal over-poopulating. Because a speices over-populated, the habitat would be over used and just breaking the thin balance of nature. So basically saving the Mexican Wolf of Northern Jaguar could still save that uncommon speices of snails.

On Day 2 of Earth Camp, Jesus showed us a style of art. To help us bring out the artist within, he put in a favor and brang animals in the classroom to sketch for us. Some of these animals were a plastic tarantula and a real barn owl. His art lived on and when he wasn't there some of us sketched military macaws, quail, landscaping and other things.